Frnka Family Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Frnka Family Cemetery, out here in Austin County. Now, some families leave behind a courthouse record, or a church pew with their name on a brass plate. The Frnka family left behind something a little more permanent.

A piece of ground, set aside on purpose, for the people they loved. In 1926, Jan Jindrich Frnka and his wife, Cecilie, born a Kroulik, conveyed property to three trustees. Not for a business.

Not for a homestead. For a family burial ground. Jan would pass in 1935.

Cecilie two years before him, in 1933. But before either of them was gone, they had the foresight to make sure there was a place for the family to gather, even in the hardest kind of gathering there is. And what a family it was.

Jan and Cecilie Frnka were parents to thirteen children. Thirteen. The marker doesn't rush past that number, and neither should we.

All of those children, save one daughter, are interred right there in that cemetery. Most of their spouses alongside them. Generation by generation, the ground received them.

Walk through the Frnka Family Cemetery today and you'll find obelisks rising up, and grave slabs laid flat, and curbing marking off the resting places, and unmarked graves too, quiet and patient beside the rest. Every one of those features a choice someone made, a way of honoring the people in the earth beneath. And here's the thing that stops you cold if you think about it long enough.

The cemetery is still used today. It still serves the descendants and relatives of Jan and Cecilie Frnka. That 1926 conveyance, those three trustees, that piece of Austin County ground, it's still doing exactly what it was meant to do.

A record of a family's history, written not in ink, but in stone and soil.

What the marker says

In 1926, Jan Jindrich Frnka (d. 1935) and his wife, Cecilie (Kroulik) (d. 1933), conveyed property to three trustees for use as a family burial ground. J.J. and Cecilie Frnka were parents of thirteen children; all of the children, with the exception of one daughter, are interred here, along with most of their spouses. Distinctive features of the burial ground include obelisks, unmarked graves, curbing and grave slabs. Frnka Family Cemetery is still used today. It continues to serve descendants and relatives of Jan and Cecilie Frnka and remains as a record of the family's history. Historic Texas Cemetery-2008